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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

FLEXIBILITY....I GUESS GOD WASN'T KIDDING

Do you find yourself fighting the nature to be a control freak? I mean do you get stuff in your mind and you seem like you've been taken prisoner as your determination as to how things are to be must rule; must win? The body of Christ is more effective when it is limber. Rigidity doesn’t belong in the kingdom system. I was reared to be very uptight. Such spiritual arthricity still plagues my ministerial movement. One who truly grows in the Holy Spirit increases in flexibility.

John 3:8 discusses that all born again are so supple they can shift or even reverse direction, much like the wind, day after day. Unbending stances have become a modern day call for respectable doctrine. Such didn’t arise from scripture as much as tradition. What goes unnoticed by us as we are stuck in it is that we don’t know we are stuck in it. We think church is the way…..

......Okay, so do you want to hear something sorta weird? I’m in the office at 5:00 trying to write this article for the blog. I’m in when no one else is to keep from being interrupted, right? So I decide you need to know about flexibility and the doorbell rings. I begrudgingly go answer it wondering what somebody wants when I’m trying to work.

So I go to the door just now even in typing mid-sentence and it’s one of our sweet college kids with an envelope marked “Terry” on it. In it is a letter from his momma expressing having saved up this money, $200, for me to use as I wanted. People are always giving me money and I give it away when/as I think God wants. How nice of this servant heart. I started to put it away and decided to pocket it as I may run into someone tonight who needs it.

So I’m back now at my computer pounding out the sentences on arthricity and rigidity when the door bell rings again. Brother! Urghh! I’m trying to write an article on being flexible here and if you idiots don’t quit ringing that stupid and irritating doorbell, I’m never going to get done! (Insert more Urrrrrghh here.)

I get up and go to the door to find a 60-ish year old disabled man with an electric bill in hand. He explains he and his wife are disabled and she is on a breathing machine and they just can’t afford to have their electric cut off. He showed me his ID and the bill which showed he lives in the neighborhood. He needed 70-some dollars so I peeled off $80 and told him that not ten minutes ago someone was ringing this same door bell handing me money for anyone who needed it......

Now, back to my story about flexibility. We all need to…..nah, I think that was it. Once again, God wrote the text!

9 comments:

It never failed when I would preach on the subject of generosity or flexibility and being available to God, someone would show up at or after church services needing FROM ME exactly what I'd been preaching to the congregation. I always thought God was testing the sincerity of my preaching and my life that day.

It's Thursday morning, September 11 and I'm getting ready to go teach a class this morning at Rowan University on FLEXIBILITY. Hmmmmmm! In the wee hours of this morning I posted a tribute to one of the most FLEXIBLE, HOLY SPIRIT LED MEN whom I have ever met. What do STANLEY SHIPP and September 11 have in common? Come find out! Be challenged! Be encouraged! Be Holy Spirit led!

you remember the joke when the guy is sneaking down the stairs in his own house to get something to eat, the lights are off and he stubs his toe, and says, "what is God trying to teach me?" well idiot you should have turned the light on!

Would this make you feel unflexible?

I had lunch Wed. with a father of one of my high school teammates (one m or two) - I think one - well our visit at lunch was great. His son, Lanny Dycus, was a great high school and college QB - went to the NFL and almost made the Miami Dolphins, back when Dan Marino was young in the league, as he was about to make the team by playing in a pre-season game that would have probably assured him of making the squad, instead of showing up for the game, he overdosed in his car but this time did not die. That was the end of his playing days. He died a few years later from an overdose and I was a pallbearer in his funeral, the only time I have done that up to now, my 45th year of life. Lanny left behind a wife, two daughters, and a pregnant wife, who eventually had their first son. It was tragic as Lanny had tried to make something of his life. His dad said when we had lunch Wednesday that Lanny had the gene that caused an addiction and he just couldn't rid himself of this said gene. His parents were in pain for a long time, but now his father, in just the past few years has broken his arm when he fell off a ladder while trimming a tree, had surgery and showed me the scar, then later hurt his elbow while having to take down a juvenile while working in a detention center which he said he doesn't like to do, but the other day he seemed as flexible spiritually as I have ever seen him, he by the way also had a pacemaker put in, but at age 67, he looked almost fit as a fiddle. His wife and he minister to people like crazy and continue to have all sorts of things that are very challenging.

I almost think that what you are saying in your blog today deals with challenges that we all face. Sometimes though it is just hard to DWJWD. This is similar to WWJD but not quite, figure it out.

Well, I have written so much tonight because God had freed me just recently from about a literal 40 year bondage of sorts and I just want to tell stories of positive things even when they have something tough included within.

Terry, you inspire me in your writing and I tonight sent a message to a person I just met who has a ministry in your town of Tulsa. I will tell you next time the name of his ministry, but his name is Mike Cunningham.

I want you Terry, and your readers to listen to a song that has just become my signature song, by going to www.sanctusreal.com and then going to their myspace. The song is named "Whatever You're Doing" and it is awesome. You should also go to http://www.reverbnation.com/stephenhinklemusic?add_email=true and listen to Stephen Hinkle's song entitled "Rescued" - both are awesome songs. If you choose not to do this you will miss out on a blessing. Listen with earphone, it makes especially "Rescued" sound special. In the Love and deliverance only Jesus Christ can provide, Jim Cooke

These verses remind me of your writing about being unflexible. Terry, your receiving and then giving away the $$$ reminds me of:

Verse 28b below: performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.

You may have given satan a small amount of opportunity, but you could have been most selfish and not given any of the $200 away, but b/c of your foundation, you gave out of love. YOUR own words: one who grows in the Holy Spirit increases in flexibility! wowGod Bless all readers, Jim Cooke

Ephesians 4:26-3226 BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. 28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. 29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. 30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Terry Rush

My World

We all get lost in our workaholism, people pleasing, and numbing behaviors as we try to escape the pain of life and the messiness of loving others. But some of us appear more whole than others, and that may be the greatest danger of all. It results in the last addiction: we rely on ourselves to heal ourselves, and so we miss the healing path.

Sharon Hersh...The Last Addiction

I miss being in the company of risky and complex thinkers, people who are invested in our culture and who challenge me to think to the edges of my comfort zones. I believed then and I believe now that where everybody thinks the same nobody thinks very much.Rosaria Butterfield...The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert